WGNW-TV
WGNW-TV is a CW-affiliated television station located in Wuhu Island-Wedge Island. The station is owned by the Graham Media Group. History The station first signed on the air on December 5, 1964, with the call sign, WUWI, standing for "WU'hu Island and '''W'edge 'I'sland". It's the 5th-oldest television station in the Wuhu Archipleago, behind WIWD, WUIE-TV, WWNB-TV, and WUHU-TV. It was originally a locally-owned station, owned by Jackie Patterson. Between 1964 and 1980, it only aired entertainment programming, including old TV shows and movies and for only 1 year, it was the archipleago's only independent TV station, until WDGI (channel 62) signed on the air as WKBE-TV. In 1980, Jackie Patterson wanted to sell the station, as she wanted to pursue on another path in the area. Patterson sold WUWI to Tribune Broadcastng in that year, and changing the call letters of the station to '''WGNW-TV, with the station's callsign reflecting a connection with Tribune's flagship television station in Chicago, WGN-TV (which stands for "W'orld's '''G'reatest 'N'ewspaper", in reference to the slogan of the company's founding newspaper, the Chicago Tribune), and the last "W" standing for "'W'uhu Island". Under the ownership of Tribune, WGNW-TV, WGNW-TV went on to be the most successful independent TV station in the market, even as a new competitor went on the air, which was WSLN (channel 27) in October 1985, while still competing with WDGI, although WDGI would become a Fox affiliate, when the network debuted on October 9, 1986. WGNW-TV also introduced a newscast on February 25, 1984, with a 10 p.m. newscast, alongside the Tribune-distributed syndicated newscast Independent Network News. '''As a WB affiliate On November 2, 1993, the Warner Bros. Television division of Time Warner announced the formation of The WB Television Network, in which the Tribune Company held a minority ownership interest (initially 12.5%, before eventually expanding to 22%). This resulted in Tribune making most of their affiliates join The WB as charter affiliates. With WGNW-TV's switch to The WB, this ended the station's 31-year run as an independent station, when The WB launched on January 11, 1995. At that time, The WB only offered a few hours of programming each week (airing only for two hours on Wednesday nights at the time of its launch, before adding a three-hour Sunday evening lineup, and a Monday-Saturday children's program block in September 1995), which had WGNW-TV mostly air syndicated programs it already had at the time. From The WB to The CW On January 24, 2006, Time Warner and CBS Corporation announced that the two companies would launch The CW, a network developed as a joint venture between the two companies that initially featured a mix of programming from both The WB and UPN (the latter of which was acquired by CBS less than a month before the merger announcement on December 31, 2005, after its split from Viacom was finalized). When The CW signed an agreement with Tribune Broadcasting to affiliate most of their WB-affiliated stations with the new network, WGNW-TV was included. Channel 47 became a charter affiliate of The CW, when the network began on September 18, 2006. UPN affiliate, WSLN became an affiliate of MyNetworkTV, a new network, made by Fox and News Corporation. On April 1, 2012, Tribune Broadcasting removed WGNW-TV, and its other television stations from satellite provider DirecTV due to a carriage dispute over an increase in payments to transmit the stations' signals. DirecTV signed a new carriage agreement with Tribune on April 4, 2012, restoring WGNW-TV as well as the other Tribune-owned stations on DirecTV. Sale to Graham Media Group On December 10, 2016, WGNW-TV thought that it's parent company, Tribune Broadcasting, was about to sell itself to another TV subsidiary, specifically, Sinclair Broadcast Group, who owns MyNetworkTV-affiliate, WSLN. Sinclair Broadcast Group was to the station, biased against their political beliefs, and didn't want conservative bias injected to their station, because WGNW-TV has heard what happened to KOMO-TV in Seattle when it was forced to air pro-Trump ads as "must-carry" ads by Sinclair. So WGNW-TV complained to Tribune that it if they sold themselves to Sinclair, they claimed that "it would be bad for democracy", as the station thought that Sinclair would cut staff of WGNW-TV that wasn't for Sinclair's own beliefs in politics or force WGNW-TV to air more GOP-centered political ads, rather than WGNW-TV airing a equal mix of both Democratic and Republican political ads. This was also because, the general manager of WGNW-TV, a female, that has been with the station for 24 years had come out as lesbian last year, which was also given when WGNW-TV changed it's logo to the LGBT colors in 2015, a few days after the Supreme Court ruled that the LGBT people should have equal rights. When Tribune heard of this issue, Tribune decided to protect WGNW-TV's political beliefs, by selling the station to Graham Media Group, which took 5 weeks to negotiate, ending WGNW-TV's 37-year ownership by Tribune. Luckily for WGNW-TV, the sale of them to Graham Media Group came days before Tribune announced they will merge with Sinclair Broadcast Group. WGNW-TV viewed the moment they joined Graham, as the day they were saved from a "threat to democracy", since they won't be part of Sinclair, due to them now being part of Graham Media Group, and they took a sigh of relief. To go with the new ownership, WGNW-TV switched back to "The One and Only" package produced by Gari Media Group, after 19 years, the last time the package was used, as some of it's new sister stations were using the same package. On August 1st, 2017, after advertising that "something new is coming to 47", WGNW-TV introduced a new, modernized version of it's logo, modeled after Independent sister station WJXT in Jacksonville, Florida and also introduced a 1-hour & 30 minute 6pm-7:30pm newscast, the first in the Wuhu Archipelago, and when "The Insider" ended, WGNW-TV extended that newscast to 2 hours, starting on September 11th. However, it has kept it's "The Archipelago's Very Own" slogan it has used since 1980. News/Station Presentation Newscast Titles * The Ten O'Clock News (1984-1998). * WB 47 News at Ten (1998-2006). * CW 47 News (2006-present) Station Slogans For lyrics to WGNW-TV's campaigns, see WGNW-TV/Campaign Lyrics. * The Archipleago's Very Own (WGNW 47) (1980-present). News Themes * "TuesdayC" - Tuesday Productions (1984-1989). * Good News - Gari Media Group (1989-1994). * The One and Only - Gari Media Group (1994-1998). * Newswire (V.1) - 615 Music (1998-2006). * WGNW-TV 2006 News Theme - Non-Stop Music (2006-2013). * WGNW-TV 2013 News Theme - Non-Stop Music (2013-June 9, 2017). * The One and Only - Gari Media Group (June 9, 2017-present). Voice-over Announcers * Ed O'Brien - 1984-1987. * Doug Paul - 1987-1998. * Bob Tracey - 1998-2013. * Beau Weaver - 2013-present. Current On-Air Staff Akuchi Rodney - News Director * Adeline Hollins - anchor; weeknights at 6 and 7 * Jordan Sutherland - anchor; weeknights at 6 and 7 * Tyson Attaway - anchor; weeknights at 10 * Jocelyn Brioschi - anchor; weeknights at 10 * Fraser Summers - anchor; weekends at 6 and 7 * Ceridwen Muir - anchor; weekends at 10 CW 47 Meterologists * Morton Cuevas - chief meteorologist (AMS Seal of Approval); weeknights at 6, 7, and 10 * Jovia Read - meterologist; weekend evenings CW 47 Sports Team * Graziella Molina - sports director; weeknights at 6, 7, and 10 * Clotilda Collingwood - sports reporter; weekend evenings Current On-Air Reporters * Oscar Headley - general assignment reporter * Emilio Hasenkamp - general assignment reporter * Tegid Faerber - general assignment & investigative reporter * Timoteo Takahashi - general assignment reporter * Goraidh Tsukuda - general assignment reporter * Aloisio Langley - general assignment & investigative reporter Programming Schedule Gallery WGNW 1985.png|WGNW-TV's logo from 1985-1995, as an independent station. WGNW-0.png|WGNW-TV news close from 2017. WGNW-TV.png|WGNW-TV's logo from 2015-2017. WGNW 2017.png|WGNW-TV's logo from 2017-2018 (w/o the Group W font). Category:Wuhu Island-Wedge Island Category:CW affiliated stations Category:Former WB affiliates Category:Former WB network affiliates Category:Former independent stations Category:Channel 47 Category:Television channels and stations established in 1964 Category:Graham Media Group